Putting this wonderful anthology of outstanding haiku has been a delight. I will blog later about what it was like and some pictures from the book release in Pune.

The title, Fuga No Makoto means “truth, sincerity and honesty which a haikai poet needs to aim at when writing poems.”

Traditionally, Japanese haiku had three lines with 5-7-5
syllables and 17 syllables altogether. However, in contemporary English haiku,
the 5-7-5 is no longer observed and any syllable count is acceptable so long as
it does not exceed 17. This anthology has a select collection with some of the
best of modern haiku.

The World Haiku Review is an online magazine which was a
pioneer in the field of haiku – one of the first and most prominent magazines
to take the Japanese poetic form and put it online for a wider audience. WHR
set the stage for the worldwide expansion of the three-line, highly imagistic verse form.

This is the Tenth Anniversary Anthology collecting only the
top ten haiku from twenty-five issues of the World Haiku Review from 2008 to
2017. Here are some of the best haiku by some of the biggest names in the
field, from countries all over the world. The poems are collected by subject,
such as Morning Frost, A Cloud’s Drift, the Flower Moon, the Dream of You and
so on. Also included are the Editor’s Choice haiku from each issue, complete
with the notes of the editor-in-chief, Susumu Takiguchi, explaining why that
verse was chosen.

A fascinating journey into a beautiful form of poetry with several hundred of the best international haiku for your reading delight.

This is a big one and has been a decade in the making. This is our ten year anniversary celebration – gleaning the very best haiku from ten years and twenty five issues of World Haiku Review into an anthology. Poets from all over the world.

The name Fuga No Makoto means poetic truth and simplicity.

It’s both a celebration and a lot of hard work. I have enjoyed reading all the poems again and spending time with poems from countries i know little about.

I am still working at the huge and painstaking job of putting the book together. Which involves putting the file together, editing, formatting, creating the cover and eventually, uploading. Its more work than I expected but satisfying at the end of it. It is taking shape slowly but surely. Soon, soon ….

So, the World Haiku Review will begin 2019 with its first book. Some really excellent poetry from some of the best poets in the field. I am sure this anthology will be a great addition to the field.

It will be available by the 1st of February as an ebook on Amazon. Print copies may come later, also on Amazon. And later in the year there will be a second volume, collecting the prose, the articles and editorials of those ten years.

Submissions are now open for Inhaiku Mumbai’s third annual anthology. After two successful anthologies, the taste of sea breeze and between sips of cutting chai, we are now open for a third one. (Both are available as ebooks on Amazon.)

The theme is travel and it is open to anyone, anywhere who would like to submit haiku, haibun, tanka or related forms. Send in your best travel poems for a chance to be published in these annual anthologies. Looking forward to seeing your work.

Submissions are open from 1st April 2018 to 15th June 2018. After that the editors will select and the anthology will be published as a Kindle ebook by Diwali, early November 2018.

If you thought poetry was boring take a look at this one. There is a section of haiku on trains, Mumbai’s local lifeline. Trianku. And another section on Mumbai’s cherished pick me up – cutting chai. This is chai so strong it is cut in half and only half a glass is served yet that is more than enough. Do read the chaiku.

We had fun putting it together, working long hours in coffee shops, braving the lashing Mumbai monsoon to put out a Diwali issue. So, here it is for your reading pleasure.

The second anthology generated a lot of interest and we got submissions from all over the world. There will be a third, so if you missed this one, do submit for the third one, next year. We read and discuss every single entry and take a group decision. As usual all submission periods will be up on this blog as soon as we open.

If you like this one check out our first anthology, the taste of sea breeze, which was published in 2016. Click on the picture for Amazon.in.

You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her
In the long summer of your love so that she would forget
Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left behind, but
Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless

Pathways of the sky.

Kamala Das

The time – the turbulent 70s. India was in turmoil and everything seemed to be more intense. The decade began with a war and went on to witness the emergency.

Perhaps because I was in college, it seemed that everyone had a pet cause and was passionate about it. Emotions were running high, perhaps because India was emerging from the ruins of colonialism and trying to find its own voice.

It seems to me that the whole country was on one major mission to discover itself, in various ways, but with equal, rebellious passion.

Feminism was raging. Women were out burning bras – this in an era when their families could not even use that word in public.

Communism was raging too. Other students were living in communes, making posters, taking out morchas and generally making their presence known. A group from the colleges, with a perfectly timed attack, took over the Mumbai University for a day and appointed their own vice chancellor. I don’t even remember what it was about but those were very exciting times.

Others were publishing underground pamphlets and circulating them. It seemed there was always something going on

I read all the feminist books but took no part in the public displays, but there were other things for me. Poetry was thriving too and there were readings and lectures everywhere. I participated in every one I could find and revelled in them.

And my life was about to get even more exciting when I met a woman who made a huge impact on me – Kamala Das.

She lived just around the corner in Mumbai and very soon I was spending every free moment in her house which was a magnet for writers, artists and poets, playwrights, astrologers, scroungers and creative people of all types.

Every month she held the Bahutantrika, the many stringed instrument, an apt name for an endless evening of art and literature. I don’t think I missed one from the day I met her.

Those were the days of My Story, her book, which was being serialized in a Mumbai paper. She was treading controversial ground there and received both acclaim and brickbats. The censure hurt but it never stopped her and that remained true for the rest of her life. She lived her own way, daring to be different, completely unaffected by what others said.

This is what I really admired about Kamala Das – her intense passion and her courage.

The first thing you noticed when you met her was her intensity, her warmth and her generosity.

She wrote about topics that are often taboo in society of those times such extramarital affairs and female sexual hungers. In those days it was completely revolutionary and her open honesty is revolutionary in any age.

It took profound courage to follow her own path, however controversial. I think my life would have turned out very differently if I had not met her in those turbulent times. Which is why I was very pleased when I was invited to speak about her at the first Kamala Das awards ceremony, followed by the film of an heartfelt interview between Randhir Khare and Jaisurya Das, her youngest son.

Randhir Khare, director of Gyan Adab, whom I first met a long time ago at Kamala’s house, is doing work that Kamala herself would have understood completely because it is what she used to do all her life with a rare and beautiful generosity of spirit – encourage creativity in others, mentor the young and hold an open house.

I only hope that, if she is looking down on us from somewhere up there, she is smiling.

Like this:

Its finally out, the anthology of our Mumbai INhaiku group. After two years of monthly meetings, even in the pouring rain, we put together a collection of haiku and related forms.

Its been fun getting it together for our second year. Everyone cooperated and helpd with the sometimes tedious task of editing and formatting. So here it is our first anthology. Take a look at haiku and senryu, tanka and the collaborative form of renku. And a new form too – renbun. Here it is.

Available as an ebook from Amazon and you can download it free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

My fifth book in the self publishing journey and this one was great fun to do in collaboration. I also enjoyed doing the cover – summer fishing boat – a very Mumbai sight. You often see these brave little boats with colourful flags even in rough seas.